As Punjab settles in for a monumental battle in the Jalandhar West Assembly constituency, the four major political parties AAP, Congress, BJP and SAD have started putting their strength towards the elections.
While AAP has fielded distinct ministers in 23 wards, Congress has deployed one MLA for every four wards. Ex-Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi himself is handling the command. Adversely, BJP has also appointed committees and in-charges at the booth level. The ground is set and the campaign is getting intense.
There are 23 wards in Jalandhar West and while Congress and BJP councillors have secured victory in these, AAP has not yet contested the Municipal Corporation elections. Therefore, every party has divided the entire West constituency into wards. AAP has deployed its minister in every ward of Jalandhar West. MLAs have been brought in from outside constituencies where there are no ministers. In this, MLAs named Gurlal Pahalwan and Laddi Dhose have been given the command of a ward. Ministers have set up camp in Jalandhar and are going to their respective wards to perform their duties.
A chairman has been appointed for each of the 180 booths in the constituency from the outside regions. Many ministers including Kuldeep Dhaliwal, Aman Arora, Balkar Singh have taken up their duties. When Sheetal Angural was the AAP MLA, he formed booth committees, but later the AAP MLA went to BJP, however, the booth committees remained. Now AAP has appointed their own chairmen on these committees who is an outsider.
BJP has already decided the management of 180 booths. BJP is fielding big faces in the 23 wards. Wards have been allotted to KD Bhandari, Manoranjan Kalia, Rakesh Rathore and other leaders of the state. BJP chief Sushil Sharma says that “only our workers are capable of competing with AAP ministers and our booth management is already ready.”